Prof. Franklin
MWF 11:00AM-11:50AM (207 Wellma)
Office Hours (Kemper 3021): Wed 1pm-3pm

No Class on Friday 9 May: There was no class meeting on Friday 9 May, due to a small family emergency. Please come to our next class meeting (on Monday 12 May) prepared to discuss the Stallman article. We will start that class meeting with *four* oral presentations: two for Sandel (Vann Teves, Matthew Morikawa), and two for Stallman (Carolyn Chen, Shawn Puri). We will not read or discuss that last article on the class schedule (Davis, "Some Paradoxes of Whistleblowing"). I am sorry for the inconvenience this causes all of you.

Term Project Oral Presentation Schedulehere.

Review Reports Grades here (Note: pp > p > cp > c > cm > m).

3-5 Minute Oral Presentation Schedulehere.

Textbook: Society, Ethics, and Technology (5th edition), by Morton Winston and Ralph Edelbach, Thomson-Wadsworth.

Catalog Description (Course Outline): foundations of ethics, views of technology, technology and human values, costs and benefits of technology, the character of technological change, the social context of work in computer science and engineering.

Expanded course description here. This course is developed by Prof. Phil Rogaway, and we will follow his overall structure and methods.

Grading: Your grade in this class will depend (roughly) on the following factors:

Classroom participation (30%): You are expected to participate fully in all of the classroom discussions. Please feel free to express your views.

Quizzes (10%): There will be short in-class pop quizzes on the reading materials, roughly once per week.

Review reports (20%): These are brief reports (1-2 pages) on our course readings. Each review report must be turned in at the start of the class at which that course reading is discussed.

Each student will give a 3-5 minute oral presentation for one of the course readings. This oral presentation will focus on a question selected by the student and approved by the instructor. These will be presented in class at the start of the class after that article is discussed. If you give an oral presentation on a paper, then you do not have to turn in a written report for that paper. You also don't have to turn in a written report for the paper we discuss on the day of your oral presentation. Thus an oral presentation means that you get to skip *two* written reports in a row. Your grade for this oral presentation will be folded in with the 20% of your grade for all the review reports.

Term project (40%): This will be a deeper analysis of a topic, including a written report (approx. 10 pages), and an oral presentation. Here is a list of books that could be used for topics. There are two milestones for your written report. The first milestone is a 1-2 page proposal, which is due Fri 25 April. The second milestone is a 3-4 page draft, which is due Fri 16 May. The due date for your written report is Fri 6 June. Please email everything to me (using the email address franklin@cs.ucdavis.edu).

Class Policies: All written material submitted must be legible. Late work will not be accepted without a doctor's excuse. Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated.

Supplemental Material: The course readings are intended to be self-contained, but you might find it helpful to consult a good basic introduction to ethical decision making, such as "A Framework for Thinking Ethically", Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, 2008 (originally in Issues in Ethics:1(2), Winter 1988).

Class Schedule:

Mon 31 Mar:
in-class activities: Watch "Decalogue, Part I".
read for next class: nothing.

Wed 2 Apr:
in-class activities: "discuss Decalogue, Part I".
read for next class: ACM Code of Ethics and IEEE Code of Ethics.

Fri 4 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss ACM and IEEE Codes of Ethics.
read for next class: Emily Pronin, How We See Ourselves and How We See Others, Science:320, May 2008.

Mon 7 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss Pronin article.
read for next class: Cowan, "Industrial Society and Technological Systems".

Wed 9 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss Cowan article.
read for next class: Donovan, "Containerization and Globalization: An Innovation and Its Impact".

Fri 11 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss Donovan article.
read for next class: Jonas, "Technology and Responsibility: Reflections on the New Task of Ethics".

Mon 14 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss Jonas article.
read for next class: Davis, "Constructing the Professional Responsibility of Engineers".

Wed 16 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss Davis article.
read for next class: Rauch, "Law and Disorder: Why too much due process is a dangerous thing"..

Fri 18 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss Rauch article.
read for next class: Brin, The Transparent Society..

Mon 21 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss Brin article.
read for next class: Sharkey, "The Automation and Proliferation of Military Drones and the Protection of Civilians".

Wed 23 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss Sharkey article.
read for next class: Joy, "Why the future doesn't need us"..

Fri 25 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss Joy article.
read for next class: Baker, "Final Jeopardy".

Mon 28 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss Baker article.
read for next class: Carr, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?".

Wed 30 Apr:
in-class activities: discuss Carr article.
read for next class: MacKinnon, "Corporate Censorship".

Fri 2 May:
in-class activities: discuss MacKinnon article.
read for next class: Kass, "Preventing a Brave New World".

Mon 5 May:
in-class activities: discuss Kass article.
read for next class: Sandel, "The Case against Perfection".

Wed 7 May:
in-class activities: discuss Sandel article.
read for next class: Stallman, Why Software Should Not Have Owners.

Fri 9 May:
in-class activities: discuss Stallman article.
read for next class: Davis, "Some Paradoxes of Whistleblowing", Business & Professional Ethics Journal, 1996.

Mon 12 May:
in-class activities: discuss Davis article.
read for next class: nothing.

Wed 14 May:
in-class activities: 3 student presentations.

Fri 16 May:
in-class activities: 3 student presentations.

Mon 19 May:
in-class activities: 3 student presentations.

Wed 21 May:
in-class activities: 3 student presentations.

Fri 23 May:
in-class activities: 3 student presentations.

Mon 26 May: Holiday.

Wed 28 May:
in-class activities: 3 student presentations.

Fri 30 May:
in-class activities: 3 student presentations.

Mon 2 June:
in-class activities: 3 student presentations.

Wed 4 June:
in-class activities: 3 student presentations.